Tonight I watched Midway, a cinematic account of one of the pivotal naval battles of World War II. This one was a bit of a mess. A viewer who is familiar with the events of the battle (I am) could keep up with what's happening, but anyone without that background knowledge would have a hard time keeping track of everything that the filmmakers crammed into just over two hours of screentime. A "human interest" subplot--about an American captain (Charlton Heston) who's son is in love with a Nisei girl--falls flat and is left unresolved at the end of the film. The rule in the 1970s was that films like this had to have all-star casts, and this one did--Heston, Henry Fonda as American Admiral NImitz, Glenn Ford, James Coburn, Hal Holbrook, Cliff Robertson, even Toshiro Mifune as the Japanese Admiral Yamamoto. They were supported by several others who were well-known TV performers of the time--Mitchell Ryan, Erik Estrada, Robert Wagner, Pat Morita, etc. The only one to make any real impression is Robert Mitchum in a cameo as Admiral Bill Halsey (Admiral Halsey fared well on the big screen--James Whitmore played him equally well in Tora! Tora! Tora!). The battle scenes are effective, if sometimes confusing--a lot of archival footage is integrated into the film, some of it shot by the great John Ford back in 1942, during the actual battle. John Williams contributed a nice score, although the famous "Midway March" is not heard until the end credits.

"May the hinges of friendship never rust, nor the wings of love lose a feather"--Scottish blessing

If you enjoy a high-tension thriller, then Runaway Train is a must-see film. Manny (Jon Voight) and Buck (Eric Roberts) break out of a remote Alaskan prison. Manny is a veteran con, hard and fatalistic, while the younger Buck, who is a couple of bricks shy of a full load, practically worships Manny. They make their way across several miles of wilderness and stow away on a southbound train. Home free, right? Wrong--the engineer has a heart attack and falls off the train, after jamming the throttle open, plus the brakes are burned out, so the train quickly accelerates to an uncontrollable speed. Meanwhile, out there behind them is Warden Ranken (John P. Ryan), as savage as any of his inmates, determined to bring them back. And that's not all: Manny and Buck find that they aren't alone. Railroad employee Sara (Rebecca De Mornay) is also on the train--and she really, really doesn't want to die.

As I said, the tension never quits in this one--credit Russian emigre director Andre Konchalovsky. All three principals give very believable performances, intense and full of emotional honesty--Roberts was Oscar-nominated, and Voight and De Mornay are equally superb. I could have done with a little more subtlety in Trevor Jones' score, which gets overblown at times, but otherwise there's little fault to find in this film. To my great surprise, it was produced by the infamous Golan-Globus team, generally know for exploitive trash, not quality moviemaking.

"May the hinges of friendship never rust, nor the wings of love lose a feather"--Scottish blessing

Tonight I watched L'armee du crime/Army of Crime. In occupied France during World War II, Armenian poet Missak Manouchian (Simon Abkarian) became the reluctant leader of a special section of the Resistance, made up of numerous immigrants--some Jewish, some Communists, some Armenian like Missak and his wife Mélinée (Virginie Ledoyen). The Nazis dubbed the group the "army of crime" in an effort to delegitimatize them. This was a very realistic film and very well made, much in the spirit of Jean-Pierre Melville's L'armee des ombres. I enjoyed it in spite of the fact that you know from the opening credits more or less how it's going to end.

"May the hinges of friendship never rust, nor the wings of love lose a feather"--Scottish blessing

Solo quiero caminar (which I've seen translated as "Walking Vengeance" and "Just Walking") has an interesting premise: Ana (Elena Anaya), the abused wife of a Mexican druglord, plots to rob him of an enormous sum, with the help of her sister Aurora (Ariadna Gil), and along with their friends (and sometime partners in crime) Gloria (Victoria Abril) and Paloma (Pilar Lopez de Ayala). Unfortunately, this promising concept founders in the execution. The film is incredibly hard to follow--it's as if several scenes were simply left out of the movie entirely. It does serve as a showcase of several of the most talented actresses from Spain in the past few decades; Gil is probably the real lead actress and is very impressive, while Lopez de Ayala, the only one of the lead quartet I wasn't familiar with, is very good as well.

"May the hinges of friendship never rust, nor the wings of love lose a feather"--Scottish blessing

I saw Little Ashes recently. The film in which Rob plays Salvador Dali.

I am a conservative person, and there were some things in this film that made me forward a few frames, but I have to admit that there weren't as many of those scenes as I was expecting. The movie as a whole was a little surreal at times (which is probably not surprising, since it was covering a surrealist) and sometimes this was off putting, but the performances were stellar. The only problem with any of the performances was that Rob's Spanish accent did drop a few times. However, apart from that, he was beyond amazing as Salvador Dali, covering a range of emotions in the man from shy and withdrawn early on, to the manic craziness of his later days. The final scene was particularly good. Javier Beltran also did a fantastic job as Frederico Garcia Lorca, the man who was in love with Dali.

My movie tonight was Captain America: The First Avenger, another superhero "origins story" from the Marvel stable. This one wasn't bad, but it wasn't terribly outstanding either. While other recent efforts of this type have had a very sure hand at the director's controls (Kenneth Branagh, Thor) or a characterful lead performance (Robert Downey, Jr., Iron Man), this one has the journeyman Joe Johnston directing and the bland Chris Evans as the Captain (a World War II army reject who is injected with a chemical MacGuffin to give him super-strength). As always, Tommy Lee Jones is a bracing presence, Derek Luke is good in a small role, and I'd like to see what Hayley Atwell could do in a better-scripted film.

"May the hinges of friendship never rust, nor the wings of love lose a feather"--Scottish blessing

Tonight I watched a little indie crime film/rom-com called Kill Me Later. Shawn (Selma Blair) is a depressed bank employee who is contemplating suicide and has gone to the building roof to think about it and maybe do it. Meanwhile, Charlie (Max Beesly) is part of a crew trying to rob the bank, when the cops arrive because someone thought Shawn was about to jump. Taking refuge on the roof, he and Shawn strike a deal--she'll become his hostage and help him escape, and once he's evaded pursuit he'll grant her death wish. Needless to say, during their enforced companionship, they start to like each other. The story here isn't exactly ground-breaking, and the film as a whole is a little bit thin and slow--plus, there's a totally unnecessary plot "twist" which is a complete flop. However, Blair and Beesly make a likable pair with good chemistry.

"May the hinges of friendship never rust, nor the wings of love lose a feather"--Scottish blessing

Max Manus is a biopic of a Norwegian resistance leader during the Second World War. We follow Max (Aksel Hennie) as he volunteers to serve with Finland's army during the Winter War in 1939, then as he starts to try to organize an underground movement after the Nazi conquest of Norway in 1940. Captured once, he escapes and makes his way to England for training, then returns to lead several successful sabotage operations. He also began a relationship with Ida "Tikken" Lindebraekke (Agnes Kittelson), a liason officer at the British consulate in Stockholm, who he married after the war. This one has some impressive and tense action sequences, but does not neglect the human side of the war, nor the hard decisions that war forces on people. A good one overall.

"May the hinges of friendship never rust, nor the wings of love lose a feather"--Scottish blessing